“I received a warning from Goering,” she said. “Himmler knows what we’re doing. For some reason he wants to stop us. And, I presume, he has an agent on board this ship, maybe more than one.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you. I wanted you to concentrate on our task. I thought I could handle any trouble. But now he attacks Lord Mountbatten. Why couldn’t he go after Mrs. Simpson instead, and save us all this effort?”
“According to that Channon fellow, someone locked Mrs. Simpson in her closet yesterday morning.”
“Ja, aber nichts mehr.”
“We don’t know that it was Himmler’s people in either case. We don’t know for certain if there are any of Himmler’s people on this ship. How could there be? Only Goering knew we were sailing on it.”
“Goering learned about Prince Edward’s plans from Ribbentrop, who talks to everyone.”
“I want to give this up, Dagne.”
“Too late, Martin. Besides, we may yet succeed. That American boy, Christopher Parker, he told me last night about Mrs. Simpson’s background. ‘Genteel poverty,’ I think that’s the term for it. She grew up poor as dirt in some rundown section of Baltimore. Her mother took in boarders. If the prince knew that, he’d drop her fast.”
“Dagne, where she comes from, the state of Maryland, it’s exactly like Virginia. It doesn’t matter how poor you are. As in Prussia, all that matters is who your family is. And I don’t think it would matter to the prince if she was an upstairs maid. Not in the slightest. It wouldn’t matter if her people were gypsies or, to harken to your obsession, Jews, even though he seems to hate them.”
“And Jews her people may very well be. Anyway, Martin, I’m going to find out as much about her as I can. And I’m going to let Lady Cunard and that Chips Channon know everything I discover. Soon the prince will know all about her, as will British society.”
“As long as the prince remains so enamored of her, they won’t do a thing to harm her. She’s their ticket to the palace.”
“She’s got to be stopped, Martin.”
“Dagne, our task, our ‘mission,’ as the fat Hermann put it, is ridiculous. I’m a broken-down old Junker who can’t even ride a horse. Am I supposed to charm her away from him, the Prince of Wales? Am I supposed to seduce her? She’s not interested in sex. She’s interested in becoming Queen of England. Interested? I’d say she’s obsessed. I think she believes it’s really possible. Do you recall her at dinner? It was as if she’d already been crowned.”
“She will not become queen. It is obviously impossible.”
“Ohne Zweifel. But he is the same about her. This man would do anything to have her. Give up the throne. Become a bootblack.”
“Not a bootblack.”
“If she wished it.”
“That’s a lot to say on the basis of one evening.”
“I would say it on the basis of ten minutes with them. We must forget this whole business, Dagne. Learn some secret from these British. Pass that on to der Dicke. Let that be his coup. But forget Prince Edward and Mrs. Simpson. It’s a fool’s errand.”
“You know what’s at stake. You and Hermann are in agreement at least on that.”
“‘Hermann,’ is it?”
“Yes.”
“And what about the bountiful Emmy?”
“Oh, don’t be disgusting.” She threw back the covers and went to the closet, rummaging through a bag. “You will need some protection. Himmler is sehr verrucht. He would order our deaths for any reason.”
“I don’t want a gun. Guns are for National Socialists.”
“There’s only one and I need it for myself. The chicken farmer seems to particularly enjoy having women killed. But there is this.” She held up a stiletto in a narrow leather sheath. “Very sharp point. Very sharp edges. Stab or slash. Your victim’s dead. It can be easily hidden in your clothing. An Italian gentlemen gave it to me when we visited Rome last year.”
“I don’t want it.”
She came and dropped it in his lap. “For such a brave, intelligent, and worldly man, Martin, you are sometimes a ridiculous fool.” She kissed him on the forehead. “But keep this well in mind. I mean to destroy this royal romance. My contributions to the Reich have been meager. This is my great opportunity and I will not squander it. This woman will not marry the prince.”
Major Metcalfe and Lord Brownlow entered the bridge unannounced, finding First Officer Van Groot and several junior officers on duty.
“We want to see the captain,” said Metcalfe.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you cannot,” van Groot said. “He is in his quarters, sleeping. He was up much of the night. As you see, we have corrected the list. We are sailing level again.”
“What was the problem?” Brownlow asked. Sunlight was glinting all across the water in front of them. They were up to full speed, and the bow was churning foam, though seas were low.
“Something to do with the ballast tanks,” said van Groot.
“There’s another problem,” Metcalfe said. “As you know, Lord Mountbatten was attacked last night.”
“I know too well. I am so glad that he was not badly injured.”
“First Mrs. Simpson, and now Lord Mountbatten, the two people on board closest to the prince. I’m quite convinced Lord Louis was mistaken for the prince, being in naval uniform and all.”
Van Groot looked back at his fellow officers, who were following the conversation intensely. “Come with me,” he said to the Britishers.
He led them out through the sliding door onto the port side bridge wing, waiting until the door had closed behind them before speaking again. The brisk head wind created by the ship’s forward speed made them raise their voices.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “What is to be done? Do you want to keep everyone in your party locked in their quarters under guard? We have searched the entire ship. We have armed several officers and crewmen and are conducting patrols. We have the prince’s quarters under constant surveillance. What more can we do?”
“Lord Mountbatten said his assailant was a woman,” Metcalfe said.
“Yes? Een vrouw? How could a woman throw an athletic naval officer like Commander Mountbatten overboard?”
“We should not ignore this.”
“Do you want me to have every woman on board interrogated? With whom shall I start? Lady Cunard? The Countess von Kresse? Lady Cooper? Miss Gwynne? Lady Mountbatten? They’re the only ones who’ve had any access to your group.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Brownlow.
“And they can all be accounted for,” Metcalfe said.
“Yes?” said van Groot. “The von Kresses left your dinner party early. So did Lady Mountbatten. Has she been quarreling with her husband? She spent the night with Count von Kresse. And before that she was with an American.”
“That’s none of your business, sir,” said Brownlow.
“Yes, it is. As you requested, I have all of your section of first class under surveillance. I don’t know how the attacker, man or woman, eluded our people. But we are doing everything we can, gentlemen, even if it means keeping a log on which unused stateroom Lady Mountbatten chooses to rest in.”
Metcalfe sighed. “Very well, sir. I’m satisfied you’re concerned about the danger.”
“We are very concerned, Major. But may I remind you, your party is not aboard the Wilhelmina at the invitation of the Lage Lander Line.”
Upon rising, Spencer kissed his photograph of Whitney and set it on his night table, a silly, sentimental gesture that helped to keep his thoughts from Edwina—and Nora Gwynne. They were now more than a thousand miles from Europe, utterly isolated in a tiny steel-and-iron world of their own chosen circumstance, but that meant also that they were a thousand miles nearer the United States and all the decisions he would ultimately have to make.
That morning’s “Ocean News” could be dealt with in a glance. The British had ordered the evacuation of civilians from
Malta. Canada had imposed a boycott of nickel imports from Italy. The Red Cross had organized a mission to Addis Ababa to aid wounded and refugees. Hungary was calling up men twenty-two to thirty for emergency military service. It was revealed that Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone were secretly married two days before.
The weather was predicted to be sunny, with temperatures reaching 58 degrees.
That evening there would be a fancy dress ball in the first-class ballroom. Costumes would be available in the starboard gallery throughout the afternoon for those who had not brought any.
He smiled. He had once taken passage through the Strait of Malacca in a tramp steamer in which everyone aboard was in costume—pirate and thief, rum guzzler and Polynesian chief, cashiered British officer and Singapore whore. He and Whitney, whom he had just met in Venice, had gone to a fancy dress ball in Nice in 1931, during the carnival. Most of the guests had been costumed in keeping with an ancient Mediterranean theme—Roman soldiers and Roman slaves, Greeks in togas, Mesopotamians, Hittites, Babylonians, Etruscans. Most of the men had been half clad. At least a dozen women had come entirely nude except for sandals and bizarre head-dress.
Whitney had worn a veil and a billowing white gown with nothing underneath. Spencer had submitted to this degradation only to the point of attending the ball in a cheap suit—and a fez. Two naked women had sat on his lap and kissed him, with Whitney watching, amused and intently curious. He had returned the kisses with some feigned ardor but had declined the proferred bare breasts. That night was the first time he slept with Whitney.
The ball this evening would be worth attending simply to see how those in Prince Edward’s party chose to bedeck themselves. This ship was hardly Nice. The costumes the Dutch would provide would likely be clown suits and monk’s cowls.
A steward brought a note while Spencer was dressing. It was from Nora.
“Thank you for last night,” it said. “You are a very nice man. Will you please be my escort at the ball tonight? Your new friend, Nora.”
Spencer reread it, then looked to Whitney’s photograph again. Whitney was in Paris. He went to the desk and hastily wrote a reply on ship’s stationery, scrawling “Bien sûr, mademoiselle charmant.” Only after the steward had taken it away did he remind himself that the lady from Toledo probably knew no French.
His hand hurt. It was becoming discolored around the cut caused by Cooper’s tooth. He administered a heavy dose of iodine from his kit, but otherwise paid the wound no further mind. In the war it would have been a trifle.
Spencer entered the smoking room to find Chips Channon seated in a high-backed chair facing the entrance, almost as if waiting for him.
“Good morning,” he said, with a glance at Spencer’s injured hand and its crimson smear.
“Good morning. Drinking so early?”
Chips had what looked to be a stinger on the table beside him. “I feel like death today. I wonder if the sands are beginning to run out; how much longer I’ll be able to go on racketing about as I do.”
“I think you’ll make it until the end of this voyage,” Spencer said, “though stingers in the morning make it a closer run thing.”
“You were in a brawl with my friend Duff Cooper last night.”
“Not a brawl. I just hit him.”
“Was that really necessary?”
“Yes. It really was. As Nancy Cunard would say, ‘quite, quite.’ As you would say, the man was behaving with a decided lack of manners. If he’d been a crewman, the captain would have him flogged.”
“You are talking, Jamieson, about the nephew of an earl. And, after all, that girl’s no special friend of yours. She’s merely an actress. And from Toledo.” He pronounced the word slowly, with great emphasis on each syllable.
“I guess she should appreciate the great honor Cooper was trying to bestow upon her, but I don’t.”
Chips stared at him frostily, then his expression collapsed. He looked horribly fatigued, the look of a man who’d just emerged from prison, or hospital.
“Forgive me, Jamieson. I’ve been a poor friend. You’re quite right, and Duff is quite wrong. She’s a lovely, sprightly creature, très vivant. I’m being churlish. I have this violent headache. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a fever. I should never have come on this antic voyage. You’ve no idea how terribly I miss Honor and our little Paul. It’s an extraordinarily satisfying emotion to meet a white pram in the park that contains one’s own son. And we’re moving into a new house in January, in Belgrave Square.”
“I’m pleased for you, Henry. Er, Chips.”
“It’s a satisfying emotion seeing you again, Jamieson. It really is. I’m sorry if I seemed distant or rude. It’s all very nerve-wracking being around His Royal Highness, especially in such a peculiar circumstance.”
“You’re certainly a devoted subject.”
“And I didn’t mean quite to go on so about the Jews. Whatever the awkwardness and vulgarity of their situation in England, what’s happening to them in Germany is simply hideous. No one ever accused me of being anti-German, but there are times when I wonder how much longer I can cope with the present regime there. They seem to have lost all sense and reason. They carry the Jewish persecutions to such a fiendish degree. It’s shortsighted, cruel, and unnecessary. Utterly unnecessary. And now we’re told we shall have persecutions of Roman Catholics, too. Are they mad? How does this help our government’s effort to maintain amicable relations with them? I fear Hitler thinks we are an effete, finished race.”
“You English.”
“My grandfather was English. And now, with me, we are English again. My little Paul will be English.”
“Why don’t you discuss the Nazis in such strong terms when you’re with the others, Chips? Why do you go on so about the Jews?”
“Because of Emerald, and H.R.H. We have to humor them, don’t you know. Otherwise everything becomes intolerably disagreeable.”
“‘Intolerably disagreeable’ is a good way to describe what it is you’re humoring.”
Chips took a sip of his stinger. He paused, waiting for its desired effect. “At all events, Jamieson, you shouldn’t have hit Duff. He’s going to become minister of war the next year. There’s absolutely no doubt.”
“What you don’t seem to have learned about me, Henry, is that I would have hit him if he were King of England.”
“Yes, I suppose you would. Crazed from the war and all that. Also, Jamieson, you should not have gotten involved with Edwina. None of us has, you know. Tuppenny royalty or no, Lord Louis is the prince’s cousin.”
“As I said, it was entirely Edwina’s idea, at least in the beginning.”
“I gather you are no longer éprisé?”
“Apparently not,” Spencer said. It was all the same as when they were in school, talking about girls like Alice Silverthorne. “I’m sorry, too. An extraordinary woman.”
“So we’ve all heard. And now it’s the crippled count’s turn. What do you think of our Prussian friends?”
“Well bred and arrogant, and probably swine. He was a real killer in the war. She strikes me as something of a beautiful corpse, although I liked her when we first met out on the deck.”
“She’s very forward and guttural. And not a little fanatical. He, I think, may be quite something else, however. You newspaper fellows sometimes make hasty judgments.”
Duff Cooper, moving uneasily, came up to them, swooping up Channon’s drink.
“Damned decent of you to have this waiting for me, Chips.” He took a large gulp, a deep breath, and then took another large gulp. “Bugger you, Spencer. And good morning.”
Duff’s lip was as discolored as Spencer’s hand, and still slightly swollen.
“Good morning.”
Cooper waved frantically at a steward, pointing to the drink and making a circular motion to include them all.
“She’s a damned bit of all right, Miss Gwynne is,” Duff said finally. “Worth all this morning’s discomfort, I daresay.�
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“I’m going to presume the rest of her voyage will be pleasant and uneventful.”
“Right you are, Spencer. Now, I can’t stand another insufferably boring day. A game of cards is in order. Poker.”
“Oh, Duff,” said Channon. “We needn’t. It’s not as though Somerset Maugham were aboard.”
“Only good thing about that stammering poseur, his poker playing. We need more players. Chips, you go fetch Fruity and as many others as you can find. I can’t stagger another step.”
Major Metcalfe was the only other player they could recruit.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said as Duff dealt the first hand. “I need to stand down for an hour or two. H.R.H. is particularly vexed this morning, and vexing.”
“What’s the term?” said Channon. “Stir crazy?”
“Yes, and now I know why jailers are little better off than their charges,” Metcalfe said. “Brownlow’s with him. And two armed crewmen. I’ve given Runcie the morning and afternoon off. He’ll be busy enough tonight. The prince insists on attending the masked ball.”
“Isn’t that all right?” Chips asked. “He can be amply costumed. No one would recognize him.”
Channon still looked like death, but the mention of the evening’s gala party enlivened him. He was the sort of man who would want to attend his own funeral, and make a gay thing of it.
“The prince’s costumes,” grumbled Duff, “are seldom ample.”
Spencer, who was holding two small pair, folded his cards. Duff won the hand with three kings, and gathered up £11. Spencer was using Press-Bulletin expense money. He wondered how Chief of Correspondents Carlson would react to an expense report that carried a huge gambling debt and listed the Prince of Wales’ equerry and the next British minister of war as persons entertained. Carlson would scream at the expense even if he listed Charles Lindbergh.
Spencer often played poker with Whitney’s husband and his friends. He remembered the touch of Whitney’s hands on his shoulders as she stood behind his chair in the de Mornays’ large, elegant drawing room. Luck for him and never her husband, but it was Monsieur de Mornay who often won the most.
Dance on a Sinking Ship Page 29